How to Guarantee The Win

This is a post script to the Dorner saga. It seems that even in death Christopher Dorner has created a spot of bother for the LAPD. Joel Rubin of the LA Times wrote that there have been 40 requests by fired officers to have their cases reviewed.

The Board of Rights system could be fair, but for the last few years the Department has consistently outdone itself in the attempt to completely skew the system against the officer. The Department wants to win. End of story.

In the article, Andrew Smith, a Commander in the LAPD, rejects the notion that a senior LAPD officer might feel pressure to make a decision that would please the Police Chief. Rubin writes that Smith pointed out that only 60% of the officers who stand before a board of rights are fired. Smith presumes that the chief wants every person who stands before a board of rights to be fired, which is something we cannot know. Additionally, I would argue that free will is not a highly valued characteristic in paramilitary organizations.

This coincides with my analysis of the makeup to the LAPD’s Boards of Rights system. The LAPD would not be serving its own interests by trying to make the review process fair or unbiased. Adverse selection rears its head in the fact that at least two of the members of the Board of Rights panels owe their careers to the LAPD. The purpose of these bodies is to protect the LAPD. The LAPD Board of Rights hearings are selling justice and fairness, they just don’t offer it.